Drought evaluation using the GRACE terrestrial water storage deficit over the Yangtze River Basin, China.

Droughts are some of the worst natural disasters that bring significant water shortages, economic losses, and adverse social consequences. Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite data are widely used to characterize and evaluate droughts. In this work, we evaluate drought situations in the Yangtze River Basin (YRB) using the GRACE Texas Center for Space Research (CSR) mascon (mass concentration) data from 2003 to 2015. Drought events are identified by water storage deficits (WSDs) derived from GRACE data, while the drought severity evaluation is based on the water storage deficit index (WSDI), standardized WSD time series, and total water storage deficit (TWSD). The WSDI is subsequently compared with the Palmer drought severity index (PDSI), standardized precipitation index (SPI), standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI), and standardized runoff index (SRI). The results indicate the YRB experienced increased wetness during the study period, with WSD values increasing at a rate of 5.20mm/year. Eight drought events are identified, and three major droughts occurred in 2004, 2006, and 2011, with WSDIs of -2.05, -2.38, and -1.30 and TWSDs of -620.96mm, -616.81mm, and -192.44mm, respectively. Our findings suggest that GRACE CSR mascon data can be used effectively to assess drought features in the YRB and that the WSDI facilitates robust and reliable characterization of droughts over large-scale areas.

[1]  D. Wilhite,et al.  CHAPfER2UNDERSTANDING THE DROUGHT PHENOMENON:THE ROLE OF DEFINITIONS , 1985 .

[2]  Y. Hong,et al.  Deriving scaling factors using a global hydrological model to restore GRACE total water storage changes for China's Yangtze River Basin , 2015 .

[3]  F. Zwiers,et al.  Climate extremes indices in the CMIP5 multimodel ensemble: Part 2. Future climate projections , 2013 .

[4]  Srinivas Bettadpur,et al.  High‐resolution CSR GRACE RL05 mascons , 2016 .

[5]  Y. Hong,et al.  Have GRACE satellites overestimated groundwater depletion in the Northwest India Aquifer? , 2016, Scientific Reports.

[6]  Casey Brown,et al.  Is water security necessary? An empirical analysis of the effects of climate hazards on national-level economic growth , 2013, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

[7]  B. Scanlon,et al.  Ground referencing GRACE satellite estimates of groundwater storage changes in the California Central Valley, USA , 2012 .

[8]  Yan Huang,et al.  A comprehensive drought monitoring method integrating MODIS and TRMM data , 2013, Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinformation.

[9]  J. Famiglietti,et al.  A GRACE‐based water storage deficit approach for hydrological drought characterization , 2014 .

[10]  R. Sadiq,et al.  A review of drought indices , 2011 .

[11]  R. Heim A Review of Twentieth-Century Drought Indices Used in the United States , 2002 .

[12]  M. Rodell,et al.  Water in the Balance , 2013, Science.

[13]  B. Scanlon,et al.  GRACE satellite monitoring of large depletion in water storage in response to the 2011 drought in Texas , 2013 .

[14]  Shusen Wang,et al.  Estimating Snow Mass and Peak River Flows for the Mackenzie River Basin Using GRACE Satellite Observations , 2017, Remote. Sens..

[15]  B. Scanlon,et al.  Global analysis of approaches for deriving total water storage changes from GRACE satellites , 2015 .

[16]  Elaine Wheaton,et al.  Drought as a natural disaster , 1995 .

[17]  Yang Hong,et al.  Drought and flood monitoring for a large karst plateau in Southwest China using extended GRACE data , 2014 .

[18]  K. Price,et al.  Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change-type drought. , 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[19]  A. Hoekstra,et al.  Analysis of Long-term Terrestrial Water Storage Variations in the Yangtze River Basin , 2014 .

[20]  Wei‐Ping Jiang,et al.  A quantitative approach for hydrological drought characterization in southwestern China using GRACE , 2016, Hydrogeology Journal.

[21]  Florian Pappenberger,et al.  Continental and global scale flood forecasting systems , 2016 .

[22]  Guillaume Ramillien,et al.  Detection of Continental Hydrology and Glaciology Signals from GRACE: A Review , 2008 .

[23]  Vincent Humphrey,et al.  A global reconstruction of climate‐driven subdecadal water storage variability , 2017 .

[24]  J. Famiglietti,et al.  Characterizing Drought in India Using GRACE Observations of Terrestrial Water Storage Deficit , 2017 .

[25]  Y. Hong,et al.  The TRMM Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA): Quasi-Global, Multiyear, Combined-Sensor Precipitation Estimates at Fine Scales , 2007 .

[26]  D. Jiang,et al.  The Review of GRACE Data Applications in Terrestrial Hydrology Monitoring , 2014 .

[27]  Irma J. Terpenning,et al.  STL : A Seasonal-Trend Decomposition Procedure Based on Loess , 1990 .

[28]  Yanping Cao,et al.  GRACE Gravity Satellite Observations of Terrestrial Water Storage Changes for Drought Characterization in the Arid Land of Northwestern China , 2015, Remote. Sens..

[29]  S. Yirdaw,et al.  GRACE satellite observations of terrestrial moisture changes for drought characterization in the Canadian Prairie , 2008 .

[30]  F. Frappart,et al.  Climate-driven interannual ice mass evolution in Greenland , 2012 .

[31]  Zhangli Sun,et al.  Assessing Terrestrial Water Storage and Flood Potential Using GRACE Data in the Yangtze River Basin, China , 2017, Remote. Sens..

[32]  Guillaume Ramillien,et al.  Basin‐scale, integrated observations of the early 21st century multiyear drought in southeast Australia , 2009 .

[33]  K. Mo Drought onset and recovery over the United States , 2011 .

[34]  Francis W. Zwiers,et al.  An Introduction to Trends in Extreme Weather and Climate Events: Observations, Socioeconomic Impacts, Terrestrial Ecological Impacts, and Model Projections* , 2000 .

[35]  Qi Zhang,et al.  GRACE-Based Hydrological Drought Evaluation of the Yangtze River Basin, China , 2016 .

[36]  Peng Yang,et al.  Monitoring the spatio-temporal changes of terrestrial water storage using GRACE data in the Tarim River basin between 2002 and 2015. , 2017, The Science of the total environment.

[37]  B. Merz,et al.  Total water storage dynamics in response to climate variability and extremes: Inference from long‐term terrestrial gravity measurement , 2012 .

[38]  T. McKee,et al.  THE RELATIONSHIP OF DROUGHT FREQUENCY AND DURATION TO TIME SCALES , 1993 .

[39]  Anny Cazenave,et al.  Past terrestrial water storage (1980–2008) in the Amazon Basin reconstructed from GRACE and in situ river gauging data , 2010 .

[40]  R. Heim,et al.  Drought indices: a review. , 2000 .

[41]  孟丹 Meng Dan,et al.  Multi-scale responses of vegetation changes relative to the SPEI meteorological drought index in North China in 2001-2014 , 2018 .

[42]  A. Dai Drought under global warming: a review , 2011 .

[43]  G. Hegerl,et al.  Climate science: Elusive extremes , 2011 .

[44]  B. Scanlon,et al.  Global evaluation of new GRACE mascon products for hydrologic applications , 2016 .

[45]  S. Shukla,et al.  Use of a standardized runoff index for characterizing hydrologic drought , 2008 .

[46]  Edward M. Tomlinson,et al.  Regional interdisciplinary paleoflood approach to assess extreme flood potential , 2000 .

[47]  M. Palecki,et al.  THE DROUGHT MONITOR , 2002 .

[48]  Vladimir U. Smakhtin,et al.  Review, automated estimation and analyses of drought indices in South Asia , 2004 .

[49]  R. Houborg,et al.  Drought indicators based on model‐assimilated Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) terrestrial water storage observations , 2012 .

[50]  L. Wen,et al.  Satellite gravity measurement monitoring terrestrial water storage change and drought in the continental United States , 2016, Scientific Reports.

[51]  V. Singh,et al.  A review of drought concepts , 2010 .

[52]  Z. Dai,et al.  Runoff characteristics of the Changjiang River during 2006: Effect of extreme drought and the impounding of the Three Gorges Dam , 2008 .

[53]  A. Hoekstra,et al.  Analysis of long-term terrestrial water storage variations in Yangtze River basin , 2012 .

[54]  Dong Jiang,et al.  Drought Analysis of the Haihe River Basin Based on GRACE Terrestrial Water Storage , 2014, TheScientificWorldJournal.

[55]  Frédéric Frappart,et al.  Changes in terrestrial water storage versus rainfall and discharges in the Amazon basin , 2013 .